Belt and Road Resource Strategy: Country Footprint and Supply Security Logic

BRI metals and mining engagement hit a record in 2025, anchored by aluminium and copper megaprojects in Kazakhstan worth about $19.5 billion and accelerating policy-bank lending across sub-Saharan Africa. The report traces Chinese resource commitments by country and commodity: cobalt and copper in the DRC and Zambia, lithium positions in the Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile triangle, bauxite in Kazakhstan and Vietnam, and port-linked copper infrastructure in Peru. It documents a financing shift, with close to half of 2025 first-half resource engagement arriving as equity rather than loan-funded construction. Host-country risk has sharpened, from a flagged review of Chinese lithium contracts in Bolivia to an acid spill at a Chinese-operated facility in Zambia, exposure that is accumulating across the portfolio.